World Governments Agree To Automatic Information Sharing

It’s like 34 drunken sailors holding each other up. That’s the best way I can think of to describe the latest product from the good idea factory that is the OECD.

Over the weekend in yet another cushy five-star hotel, representatives from this unelected supranational bureaucracy announced plans for world governments to exchange all their citizens’ tax and financial data with one another.

The 34 members states of the OECD are enthusiastically supporting this measure. And it constitutes the end of whatever remains of financial privacy.

The premise behind the OECD’s destructive pipedream is, as usual, to stamp out ‘tax evasion’. But this is a misnomer to being with.

Just about every multinational company out there employs strategies to reduce their current tax liabilities that are perfectly legitimate based on existing tax laws.

This is why companies like Google and Apple famously earn billions in profits but pay almost no tax. They’re vilified. But it’s legal.

These companies have shareholders from all over the world. And their solemn responsibility is to maximize shareholder value… not maximize the amount of funds that politicians in a single jurisdiction get to blow on wars and welfare.

There are also isolated individuals who are sitting on undeclared income stashed away in an overseas bank somewhere. But the aggregate amount is tiny compared to the $60+ billion that Microsoft alone has stashed away overseas, untaxed.

You’d think they’d get at the root cause of the problem and try becoming more competitive… lowering tax rates and streamlining government operations (shocker!)

But no. Instead they resort to even more Draconian tactics to lord over private citizens’ financial records and unilaterally set aside long-standing international treaties.

It’s a pathetic display of exactly the sort of tactics that governments embrace when they go broke. And most of these OECD countries ARE broke– Italy, Japan, the US, Spain, Greece, etc.

So what we have now are a bunch of bankrupt member states who think that they are helping the other bankrupt member states raise revenue by terrorizing citizens (rather than actually fixing the problem).

It’s genius. But what else can one expect from the OECD?

This is the same organization which said, in the same meeting over the weekend, that Germany should accept higher inflation so that the rest of Europe wouldn’t suffer from deflation.

The arrogance is astounding.

This is the same logic as borrowing your way out of debt and spending your way out of recession… brought to you by the same guys who completely missed all the warning signs of the Global Financial Crisis. Along with the IMF. The Federal Reserve (and every other central bank in the world). And every government out there.

Yet these are the rocket scientists who pull the levers that control the system.

It behooves anyone who can see the big picture to distance yourself as much as possible from this system.

This means, for example, keeping a portion of your savings in real assets that they cannot control, as opposed to paper assets that they conjure and manipulate.

Most importantly, it means not having all of your eggs in one basket. Bankrupt governments will resort to any measure they feel is necessary to maintain the status quo.

And if you live, work, invest, bank, run a business, own real estate, etc. all in one of these bankrupt countries, you are really taking on tremendous risk.

To make sure of an oft-repeated phrase - "NEVER go Full Retard!". Either someone else is using the fonestar account, you've suffered some severe mental or physical trauma, or you've just decided to go absolutely crazy and start ranting like a lunatic.

No, this ISN'T a slight against BitCoin, Satoshi, P2P or whatever - this is an observation of the content of your posts.

In an act of supreme faith fonestar sold everything he owned over a year ago (minus one IBM laptop) and went full retard into Bitcoin. So far it has been working great for him. Everything fonestar does, he only does in the name of Satoshi Nakamoto.

As you know, my administration (and the government of the United States, Incorporated) has come under fire recently for our ability and implementation of OUR ability to compile all types of information from all sectors of everyone's personal, medical, communication, and financial data around the world. I know you think we were 'invading your privacy' here, but let me explain. I'm sure you'll understand, and, in fact, thank us for taking these first bold new steps in to a better tomorrow.

As I see, you are now seeing the benefits of inclusion of every human on the earth in this new paradigm of command and control (we only did what we did to demonstrate our power to do so). Our new facility in Utah, USA, is being equipped with the finest state-of-the-art computers, in order that you may avail yourselves of this ability to track those pesky humans (oops, I mean, so-called 'scofflaws') in your individual countries' borders, and render whatever it is that you render. Im MY nation, we like to call this 'rendition' and 'waterboarding' (of course, again, these are simply examples).

As to the pesky insect called 'BitCoin' (which seeks to replace the fedscrips worldwide), well, we already have a plan in order to deal with this threat, as well. You see, these fools actually think that we will LET THEM USE OUR INTERNET AND POWER GRIDS, but it is a given that WE also control access to these things, as well.

AGAIN, thank you for listening. If you need further information, please avail yourselves of the ability to contact one of many of our public/private corporate sponsors.

If this is the communication style that works best for u then fine... Just try to throw in some freaking CONTENT once in a while, a stale joke.. There's no reward for being the Donald trump of space around here... You can begin this exercise by occasionally using DIFFERENT words.

For that to happen, bitcoin would actually have to be adopted and used by a significant number of the world population. I don't see a reality where that happens. I think it's silly for you to tell people to buy and hold bitcoin becuase it is going to 7 figures. It's better to tell people to buy bitcoin and actually buy goods/services with it. However, it really doesn't matter because people who accept bitcoin transfer it right back to fiat. Bitcoin is a service to be used with extreme caution.

So, the only way to be safe is to be a roadside bum without any family or money. LoL. The great western civilization... I hereby renounce all my plans to be of value. Because if there is something valuable here, the thugs will come for me. But if I am bum, I will be safe.

Not even then because after all those measures of disinvestment, you appear as a "black hole" on the screen of existance, identified not by what you have, but what you don't have. Indeed, this is alarming to those whose job it is to look at the screen.

The entire electrical or telecommunications grid doesn't need to go down. Localised outages work just as well. Consider a list of the typical pieces of hardware that your request passes through just to present you with the ZeroHedge page:

(Step 2 could have hundreds of sub steps thanks to one site connecting to multiple distributed services)

Thanks to the proliferation of Software as a Service products running within a virtual machine as one of perhaps one hundred virtual machines on a single server, the number of points of failure increases exponentially as people become more dependant on being connected to the Internet and demand more services become available via the Internet.

Than, factor in traffic disruptions caused by 400Gbps DDoS attacks that are starting to occur, and will increase in regularity, and you're going to find that there's going to be more outages in the future. One DDoS attack could, in theory, bring down entire data centres (and thousands of sites affecting millions of users) if they are directed well enough.

To understand the physical links, go here: http://submarinecablemap.com - these are only the major international links, and there's a lot of points of failure just there. It's just like a fractal image - the more you zoom in, the more and more links that are available for tampering with.

LoP, note that Nazi Germany, the GDR's Statis and Stalin's KGB did just fine w/o the Grid.

We may "have guns", but their populace did not buy into the Propaganda of their Media -- the way ours does. And so a "freedom fighter" or "libertarian" can simply be relabeled as a DT (Domestic 'Terrarist'). Our populace would not bat an eye with reports of "another DT captured".

Think of me as a director of some kind of surreal real-time play. I was merely providing an entrance for the posts that are sure to follow...

As for my income, alas, not enough to attract any untoward attention... I think there is still a couple of Swiss accounts but they probably already confiscated whatever was there via "service fees"....

Oh no, this is going to be hilarious. It'll be beyond anything any one has ever seen in terms of diplomatic fuck ups in the galactic history of diplomatic fuckups but from this side it'll be pretty funny.

The one thing that governments really suck at is information classification as it relates to cultural bias and financial classification. Cultural bias being the obvious one. Financial classification, the accounting industry loves acronyms and standards as much as engineering. "Lots of standards" to pick from, sprinkle in another culture, various acronyms from the local professional guilds that define the cultural process of accounting to a local professional dialect and tax code.

So watch the news in those countries as FOIA's are launched all over the place. Then something slips, because these guys still operate under a beggar thy neighbour but some good comes from it...

What they will understand real quick though is they are all beyond broke and it was only a lie that kept the cheques from bouncing for the past 13 years. What they won't understand is how they've been harpooning each other with materials pricing, manipulation and how the banks have been fucking them all in the ass for a long time.

Either they'll cry or laugh their asses off once they review everything and learn the important lesson of the role of what a government is supposed to be by it's people. You know, that crazy idea that governance happens and the role of a government is to manage common elements everyone wants in a society to make it run well by examining the noted requests.

In IT we use ITIL to manage this stuff, it's ugly doing it the first time, gets easier the second time. 500 ft view, Service desk obtains the request from their users then it goes in the sausage maker and at the other end a delivered widget/process/service.

After a while of doing that, the IT delivery people understand what common elements need more attention than other things. It takes a bit of time to do, but once it's done no one should have much to complain about on how well things run. Right now though that won't happen until they wake up by seeing how hosed they are and that they've all been taken for a ride. Then hopefully...for the first time in 100 years they'll listen with their ears and not their mouths.

And just maybe...they'll see the Truman show they've created for themselves and break out by turning the tables with their own processes. If they needs to hedge and create buffer time while sorting things out there is one thing government does excel at.

And that would be waiting. While it appears to be a major annoyance externally, it serves as an amazing defensive position to re-prioritize direction without having anyone to blame. Throw in a reorg on top of that and nothing is going to get done.

"I'm so sorry. It's in the system, department is going through a reorg and half of everyone is off on stress leave/sick/pregnant/sex change/whatever/at pub/tree planting."

See how well that works at buying time? Otherwise keep an eye on the news papers it's going to get so weird.

The concept of a liminal situation can also be applied to entire societies that are going through a crisis or a “collapse of order”.[47] Philosopher Karl Jaspers made a significant contribution to this idea through his concept of the “axial age,” which was “an in-between period between two structured world-views and between two rounds of empire building; it was an age of creativity where ‘man asked radical questions’, and where the ‘unquestioned grasp on life is loosened’”.[48] It was essentially a time of uncertainty which, most importantly, involved entire civilizations. Seeing as liminal periods are both destructive and constructive, the ideas and practices that emerge from these liminal historical periods are of extreme importance, as they will “tend to take on the quality of structure”.[49] Events such as political or social revolutions (along with other periods of crisis) can thus be considered liminal, as they result in the complete collapse of order and can lead to significant social change.[50]

Liminality in large-scale societies differs significantly from liminality found in ritual passages in small-scale societies. One primary characteristic of liminality (as defined van Gennep and Turner) is that there is a way in as well as a way out.[51] In ritual passages, “members of the society are themselves aware of the liminal state: they know that they will leave it sooner or later, and have ‘ceremony masters’ to guide them through the rituals”.[52] However, in those liminal periods that affect society as a whole, the future (what comes after the liminal period) is completely unknown, and there is no "ceremony master" who has gone through the process before and that can lead people out of it.[53]

In such cases, liminal situations can become dangerous. They allow for the emergence of “self-proclaimed ceremony masters”, that assume leadership positions and attempt to “[perpetuate] liminality and by emptying the liminal moment of real creativity, [turn] it into a scene of mimetic rivalry”.[54]

oh wow, im so glad i have followed simon blacks advice and have become a global vagabond.............except for my home in the chilean paramo that i bought from simon. he did i tell you that my casita in chile came with free chilean inflation protection bonds. wow, am i lucky!!!!

Easy, take small amount of junk silver, put in metal box (fancy one with a lock). Bury that a foot or two above your stash about 4 inches deep. Put a couple of rusty nails below the throw away box as well.

There are a thousand ways one can think about hiding valuables in plain sight.

So my gold bars held in trust by a blind third party fiduciary in Sinapore might be at risk?

Well hell, now I have to get anal probed, fly over there, exchange them using some blind BTC custodian, then get it transferred to my secret proxy wallet and make it back. Then cash in my BTC and go to my LCS, buy back my gold, and then just store it in my house among my kids legos and dog's chew toys?

Or I could have just avoided the 007 route and bought the PMs from my LCS with cash and skipped the anal probe and spy stuff?

Bank Melli (Iran) used to have good relations with the Fed, until the FRBNY stole Iran's gold in a freezing manoeuvre (after the Shah), and had to do a gold swap with the Brits in early 1981 during the hostage crisis to give the Iranian gold back, since the US gold by then was inferior coin bar shit that had been confiscated in the 1930s and melted down. Kit McMahon of the Bank of England flew out to Algeria to make sure the Iranians were not too pissed..

The reason labour is not competitive IS government. You cannot have the government impose regulations on you and the open the border and tell you to compete with countries with a completely different set of regulations. Also note the inconsistency: They tell you to compete on the open market but playing by their rules, but when it comes to them THEM competing based on tax rules NOOOOO. Then we have to "level the playing field", then we start talking about "social justice".

They make you uncompetitive. They are the reason you lose your job, they are the ones who have created the debt, they are the reason you cannot even plant a fucking carrot in your garden without risking arrest. They have gone this far. You tell them to stop debasing the currency and they ignore you. You tell them to stop bailing out useless entities with YOUR money and they ignore you. You tell them that you cannot take it anymore and they ignore you. And when they cannot ignore the consequences of you running away from them as best as you can they aggressively attack you as if you owed them something.

And a strong military is one thing, a fucking expeditionary force out there fighting colonial war in Iraq and Afganistan, with bases in places I cannot find on the map let alone whose names I cannot even pronounce, is not something I want to do.

I demand a fucking itemized tax bill God damit, I want to know and choose what I pay for. Otherwise.. I have decided to limit my economic activity to the bare minimum standard of living I want. Anything more I make will one way or another be taken away from me. So fuck you. I hope more people start acting like that. Atlas must shrug. It is his only way out of this. Otherwise he will be chained on a rock like Prometheus. \rant

I suggest you look up the tax rates under Hitler and Mussolini before you call this Fascism. This is Marxism. Fascism is when the Globalists of the OECD and other organizations that actualy undermine national sovereignty get a jackboot in the teeth.

I wonder what the reaction will be when Google, Apple and the rest move their bases of operations in Russia, pay 12% flat and tell everyone to fuck off. I mean can you imagine the self righteous outrage and endless waffle for our politicians?

The OECD nations have shared budgets. The FED will send bailout money to member nations and member nations will buy US Bonds and so on. The citizens taxes of each member country are thus shared among OECD nations.

It is taxation without representation and represents treason by the bankers within each of their respective nations. Unfortunately the banksters have so far been able to control the armies of the nations so there is no way to bring the bankstes to justice at that time.

i applaud the rhetoric, but seriously. you aren't going to catch me part of some delusional mob of bloodthirsty fanatics. i'm sorry, but i try to live by the words of jesus, even though i don't consider myself religious or christian...

Where are all the comments blaming the banksters, the jews, lobbyists, corps, the wealthy? Everyone knows that politicians and bureaucrats are either corrupt lackeys or well meaning manipulated boobs who have no power.

Thailand has a bit of a civil war festering and waiting. Standard situation really. Government makes policy good for the rural areas, not as good for the cities, city folk (despite being the minority) scream bitch and moan and get all bloody with their protests. If you do it the opposite way, you start getting "terrorism" wherein the rural areas start getting getting very sympathetic to anti-government causes. No real easy fix to this and it's eventually going to boil over much worse than it has previously given an excuse.

Brazil: Massive drought, shit's fucked, I sure as fuck wouldn't pull the trigger on that, also far too close for comfort as it's traditional stomping grounds of the US for when the public needs a distraction.

I'd vote Laos if you just want to escape. Because no matter what happens in the rest of the world, no matter how things develop, Laos will always be Laos.

1. Simon's CHILE is on that list. Simon, count the days that you'll have "privacy" in Chile. Look, having visited Chile (nice country!), if I were as "freedom & privacy" conscious as is Simon, I'd avoid the OECD countries entirely. Especially I had a Plan B, where push came to shove and I wanted to have a stash of cash and a place to live outside the "Uncle Sam hot zone".

2. We know what and how much information is going into Israel, but exactly what type and amount of "information" will come out? Besides a list of "Palestinians abroad" that we are to observe on their behalf and on our dime?

"These companies have shareholders from all over the world. And their solemn responsibility is to maximize shareholder value… not maximize the amount of funds that politicians in a single jurisdiction get to blow on wars and welfare."